Polymorph

I just finished watching Polymorph, a straight-to-video cheapie made in 1996, for a budget that must have been under $100,000.  It was a pretty standard mish-mash of alien body-snatcher, psycho drug dealers, and the band of attractive interns that alway seem to attract killing.

I gave it five stars on Netflix.  The acting was actually pretty good, the action kept moving, and the denoument worked.

[Next day] I had to come back and add a note to this “review”.  This movie grew on me overnight.  Sure, it’s barely more than a student film in terms of production quality, but the plot, which seems pretty simple, has a bit of depth.  It takes the viewer on a journey, a fairly short journey maybe, but one that undercuts your assumptions.  And, though some of the conflict scenes were pretty over the top, and some of the emotive stuff a bit messy, it felt as if it was at least trying to imitate real life rather than other movies in the genre.  The balance of forces was perfect for the tension built.

I started watching the movie as if were a Sci-Fi original (don’t know what we’ll do when they change their name to Syphyllys Fy), using it as background while I worked on my laptop.  But, soon enough, I was engaged.  Put the laptop down and wait for what happens next.  A lot of movies with much higher production values fail this simple test.